User reviews

House by the River is directed by Fritz Lang and adapted by Mel Dinelli from A.P. Herbert's novel The House on the River. It stars Louis Hayward, Jane Wyatt, Lee Bowman & Dorothy Patrick. Music is by George Antheil and photography by Edward J. Cronjager.

Novelist Stephen Byrne (Hayward) makes a play for the house maid and unwittingly kills her when she repels his advances. Enlisting the help of his disabled brother, John (Bowman), to dispose of the body in the river, Stephen suddenly finds that the publicity surrounding the maid's disappearance has put him in vogue again. In fact he finds his muse sufficiently stoked enough to craft another novel. But as easy as Stephen finds it easy to have no conscience, the opposite is the case with John, and with the river refusing to hold its secrets, something is going to give.

Working out of Republic pictures, Lang refused to let the low budget production hamper his vision of a bleak Cain & Abel like Gothic-noir-melodrama. He did, however, meet some resistance when requesting that the maid be played by a black woman, which was quickly shot down by nervous executives at the famed "B" movie studio. House by the River is far from being among the best of Lang's work, but the final product is still a triumph considering it's basically a three character piece set virtually in just two locations. It scores high on eerie atmosphere and finds Lang dealing in moral bankruptcy/responsibility and the eye for an eye mentality. Ushered into the narrative, too, is a Lang fave of people irked by loving someone they can't have. These themes allow the director to gloss over the simple script and dally in some truly arresting visuals.

Aided considerably by Cronjager's (Desert Fury/CanyonPassage) chiaroscuro photography, Lang's film is a lesson in how to maximise effect from limited sets. The actual house on the river, and that of the neighbour (resplendent with creepy scarecrow in garden), has a very disquiet feel to it, fronted by shimmering water that carries the dead carcass' of animals, it's a most haunting setting. And the eerie atmosphere continues inside the house, where shadows work their wonders and Antheil's music sticks rigidly (and rightly) to the creaky house formula. The cast don't pull up any trees, but they don't need to. Hayward is perhaps too animated for a study in snide villainy, but it works and he has a nice line in visual mocking. The rest fall in line for what is required, with the best of the bunch being Ann Shoemaker as nosey neighbour Mrs. Ambrose.

Once a hard to find film, House by the River is now easily accessible after gaining a DVD release (the print is fine, some age spotting and crackles, but completely watchable). It's a film that is easily recommended to Lang and Gothic house based movie purists. Driven by a despicable protagonist and cloaked in a creepy noirish vibe, it deserves to now gain a better and more appreciative audience. 7.5/10

The most interesting aspect of House By The River is the fact that it was produced at Republic Pictures, the home of Roy Rogers and several other B movie cowboys and the values those pictures put forth. Hardly the place for a moody and atmospheric thriller that examines a man's moral degeneracy directed by Fritz Lang who always likes to explore the dark. One thing that does mark this as a Republic film is the usual Herbert J. Yates economy.

But for a director like Lang who was used to exploring shadowy worlds, economy on the set isn't a hindrance, though back in Germany this man directed the opulent Metropolis. House By The River delivers the most for its meager budget.

Louis Hayward who was a poor man's Tyrone Power and like Power could play straight heroes and hero/heels gets his Nightmare Alley type role as the rich and idle writer who just can't move the writer's block. He takes a real fancy to maid Dorothy Patrick and when she repulses his advances, Hayward kills her. He gets older and club footed brother Lee Bowman to dump the body in the river. But as dead bodies will do, they bloat and have a nasty habit of floating to the top.

Lang and Hayward create a really frightening picture of moral degeneracy that would have resonated well with post World War II audiences who had just defeated a nation gripped in the philosophy that it was a race of super people. Jane Wyatt gets her innings in playing Hayward's wife who Bowman also loved and who starts thinking that maybe she married the wrong brother.

I have to single out Jody Gilbert from the cast who plays Bowman's housekeeper and who Bowman takes his frustrations out on after he's helped Hayward. She's not the sharpest knife in the drawer and misreads all of Bowman's signals and later does him damage at a coroner's inquest.

I'm not sure how much money House By The River brought in to Republic Pictures, but it is a minor masterpiece for this studio.

House By The River was a simple tale masterfully brought to the screen by Fritz Lang in his best conventional yet classy style. It was shot on a shoestring budget for Republic but a brooding atmosphere was captured beautifully by intelligent production and marvellous period sets on sharp nitrate film stock. Even the studio shot scenes of the garden with long shots of the bricky houses are fascinating to sink into.

Louis Haywood plays a budding writer with pretensions to Art and dubious morals who accidentally murders his lowly servant girl and drags his weaker brother into the mess to help him out. The story is simply played out to the bitter end, and although I wish the police angle could have been given more prominence it's completely logical. The part the River plays isn't as large as the House, but it's a darkly inspired mix; I've always wondered what colour the wallpaper was. Haywood often played ambivalent characters, however there's no ambivalence here in his portrayal of Stephen Byrne – he's an evil swine all right. When it's all done you should be left with admiration for a director who could make a little go such a long way, with the help of a great team and cast of course!

It deserves more attention than it gets – maybe the simple descriptive title didn't help it win immortality, otoh a more eye-catching "Strangled In The Dark" wouldn't have been as good either! This is one of those little films to treasure and something to revel in at the cinema or late at night on TV with the lights off for maximum effect.

For some reason, the great director chose to degrade this film on some occasions, yet at other times he would revel in details of the film's opening quarter-hour. However, at the time that he made this film, he was despondent over the collapse of his Diana Productions which was a co-venture with Joan Bennett and her husband Walter Wanger. With no offers in sight from the majors, Lang chose to visit "Poverty Row" which may have left him with bad memories of a film of which he should have been more pleased.

In HOUSE BY THE RIVER, we have Lang working at the bargain basement Republic Pictures, where Orson Welles had just made a similar descent to make MACBETH. In each case, the decline was only in budget, not in quality. In Lang's case, we have a film that plays as a great companion piece to his SECRET BEHIND THE DOOR, both being a change of pace Gothic thriller from the master of spies and noir.

Incidentally, the promise of artistic freedom offered at Republic did stop when Lang attempted to cast a black actress as the maid. We're just lucky that Vera Hruba Ralston (wife of company head Yates) wasn't cast as the wife.

The screenwriter, Mel Dinelli, working from the A.P. Herbert novel, was a past and future hand at these "house" mellers - he previously did the screenplay for THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE and would do BEWARE, MY LOVELY in 1952. He segued well from Robert Siodmak to Fritz Lang as long-time Langian themes such as conscience and fate are in evidence here. Oddly, it is not the lead who suffers a conscience. Hayward's Stephen Byrne, a hack writer who has been lusting for the new maid played by Dorothy Patrick, revels in his self-promoted celebrity now that she's "disappeared." She's actually been accidentally murdered by Stephen, who had been filled with lustful thoughts as the maid bathed and seems to have a near orgasm as he hears the bathwater go down the drain outside the house - the look on Hayward's face is priceless.

It's his brother John who aided him in hiding the body (and who is referred to as having gotten his brother out of other scrapes) who turns to drink to quell his conscience and who is the primary suspect in the inquest. Little does he know that his brother is subtly implicating him in the crime in toto. His fate would be that no good deed (siblingly speaking) goes unpunished. The brother is played by Lee Bowman, and it's the only role of his in which I can say he's memorable. That's not to say that otherwise he's a forgettable player, just that he's not distinguishable from a bunch of mustachioed players who came out while the head ranks were off to war and who quickly had to retreat once they returned.

Hayward is so enjoying his celebrity that he's signing books by day and wife Jane Wyatt refers to him being out all night and smelling of cheap perfume when he comes home. She's beginning to realize that Lee Bowman's John Byrne is the better of the brothers, although the story implies that she was his own unrequited love.

But as unsympathetic as Stephen Byrne may be, before an audience ever rooted for Robert Walker trying to retrieve his lighter in STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, we share Stephen's fears of the body doing some synchronized swimming with the deer. While attempting to retrieve it, he only makes it worse for himself by accidentally (he can't do much right it seems) opening the top of the sack and letting out some flowing blond hair to make it even more obvious. When Stephen later finds that his brother's monogram is on the sack, he breaks into a devilish smile of contentment.

Cinematographer Edward Cronjager works well with Lang on their second pairing (the previous one was the gorgeous Technicolor WESTERN UNION). When the body (in a sack) starts popping up in the river, we recall the image of a floating deceased deer from earlier in the film and a character's claim that it shows up at about the same time every day given the tide.

If the ending seems rushed, it's only a reflection of the lead character's madness (a quick snap), unlike the state of mind of Chris Cross (Edward G. Robinson) at the ending of SCARLET STREET which is more detailed. It could have been a bit tidier, but maybe the head man cut the budget and schedule short. It was known to happen at Republic.

House by the River is something of an anomaly; it's more of an old-dark-house Gothic than the grittier dramas, from Fury to Beyond A Reasonable Doubt, which Fritz Lang made in his American period. (The location of this house is a worrisome and amateurism anomaly, too; the conventions, milieu and some of the accents suggests that it's an English country estate, but much else argues that the film takes place in the U.S.) Would-be writer Louis Hayward, getting flirtatious with the maid in the absence of his wife (Jane Wyatt), accidently strangles her when she resists his advances. His brother (Lee Bowman) reluctantly agrees to cover up for him and help sink the body in the sinister, ever-present river that runs by the edge of the property; the resulting scandal of the disappeared servant bolsters the writer's flagging career. When suspicion begans to gather around his innocent brother, Hayward, by now seriously demented, couldn't be more pleased. But then Wyatt comes across a hidden manuscript; Hayward (you see), flushed by his phoney success, resolves to write "what he knows...."

Edward Cronjager's heavily shaded cinematography and Georges Anthiel's brooding score help fill out Lang's dark, clammy vision, making the river -- forever disgorging its flotsam and jetsam -- a principal character in the action. House by the River is a good old-fashioned thriller, particularly in its Gothic closing scenes, but it's not in a class with Lang's films at the top of his American form, like Scarlet Street, The Big Heat or Human Desire.

The unsuccessful writer Stephen Byrne (Louis Hayward) tries to force his servant Emily Gaunt (Dorothy Patrick) sexually while his wife Marjorie Byrne (Jane Wyatt) is visiting a friend and accidentally strangles her. His crippled brother John Byrne (Lee Bowman) coincidently comes to his house in that moment, and Stephen asks him to help to get rid of the corpse and avoid an scandal, since his wife would be pregnant. The naive and good John helps his brother to dump the body in the river nearby his house. Stephen uses the disappearance of Emily to blame her and promote his book. When the body is found by the police, all the evidences points to John, and he becomes the prime suspect of the murder.

"House by the River" is a dark and tense movie with one of the most despicable characters I have ever seen. Louis Hayward is perfect in the role of a scum, capable of killing, defaming, lying, falsely accusing, and maintaining cold blood. Jane Wyatt and Lee Bowman complete the efficient trio of lead cast. Fritz Lang uses with mastery the shadows and lights in the black and white cinematography as usual. The story is very tense, but the conclusion is very abrupt and quite conventional, moralist and commercial. In my opinion, this excellent film deserved a darker and amoral ending to become another masterpiece of this outstanding director. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "Maldição" ("Curse")

The star of this film is not an actor or actress; although the troupe does a very good job of turn of the century day to day life. No, the star of this film is Fritz Lang, the master of suspense before Hitchcock became known as such later in American cinema. Lang's M is a masterpiece not even equalled by Hitchcock. This piece is not quite as well done, but certainly better than the vast majoirty of noir pieces of the golden age. Lang was forced to do this fine piece of work for Republic Pictures; a bottom of the barrel studio, while Hitchcock had the full resources of. Selznik Studios in the US. Treat yourself to this film.

Louis Hayward utters this chilling line. His brother, Lee Bowman, has a physical disability. He has always been loyal to Hayward. But Hayward is looking out for number one -- big time.

I had seen a terrible print of this movie once years ago and figured it to be lesser Fritz Lang. Not so! It is certainly one of the very best of his American movies. It's beautifully filmed, extremely well plotted, and cast superbly.

It is, in summary, a terrifying movie.

The Hayward character is responsible for a killing very early in the plot. He had not intended it, though his motives were not very high in the circumstance causing it. He doesn't care whom he drags down to keep his name clear and finish the book he is writing about the crime.

In addition to excellent performances by Hayward, Bowman, and Jane Wyatt as Hayward's wife, the supporting cast is a dream: Plump Jody Gilbert is pathetic and hateful simultaneously as Bowman's maid. Ann Shoemaker gives a touch of comic relief -- but just a touch -- as a nosy neighbor of Hayward and Wyatt.

Like the best of Lang -- "The Big Heat," "Fury," "M," "Metropolis," and the Mabuse films -- this concerns morality and its lack. There is a Biblical feel to it, as evidenced in the quote from Hayward (Cain) regarding his fine brother Abel/Bowman.

It could scarcely be better than it is.

Fritz Lang made a lot of great films over his career, mostly in his native Germany; but he certainly made a lot of worthwhile films in the USA, and House by the River is definitely one of them! This thriller revels in its lush Gothic atmosphere, and this is brilliantly complimented by the dark themes of the story and a strong overture courtesy of George Antheil. The film takes place, as you would expect, in a house by a river. Director Fritz Lang makes excellent use of both of these central locations, as the house always looks dark and foreboding; while the river is deep and dark, and provides an excellent setting for a macabre story of murder. The plot focuses on two brothers, one of which is an unsuccessful writer that lives with his wife and two maids. After making advances towards the younger and more attractive maid and being turned down, our main protagonist finds himself in a predicament when she dies in his arms. He then recruits his brother to help him rid himself of the body in the nearby lake, and the publicity of the disappearance gives him a welcome boost to his writing career...

This film has been thrown in with the film noir movement that took place in the forties and fifties; but if you ask me, it's not really a part of it. The film does feature dashes of mystery, common of film noir - but the focus is really on the suspense, dark plot and settings, thus making it more of a straight thriller. The story itself is strong and works because of its well defined characters. The ensemble cast is good overall, with Louis Hayward impressing in the lead role and receiving good feedback from Lee Bowman and Jane Wyatt in support. The main reason why the film works so well is clearly down to the atmosphere, and the director always ensures that the film takes place in absolute darkness, which helps the macabre plot no end. Lang uses props such as dead animals and hallucination to maximum effect, and all help to make the film what it is. The House by the River boils down to a suitable dreary climax, which bodes well and gives credence to everything that has gone before it. Overall, this is a lovely little movie and undoubtedly one of the best that Lang made in America. Highly recommended!

Intense period thriller about a writer, Stephen Byrne (played by Louis Hayward), who lives in - yeah, you guessed it - a house by the river; with lovely yard and gazebo, yet oddly dark as the film opens with the sky clouded, shadows cast across scenery, haunting music, a dead animal floating by on the glistening water, and a black widow spider crawling over his writing. We meet the attractive, blonde servant girl, Emily, who Stephen clearly has a lustful eye on from the get-go. By the next scene, he tries to kiss her coming down the stairs after bathing in his tub, and, well, she screams and he "accidentally" strangles her. With his brother assisting him, they put her body in a big sack and sink her in the river, then follows the cover-up of the murder.

Well, this film is quite interesting, dark and suspenseful - there's a lot going on here. The print I saw looked strikingly full of sharp black and white contrast. The photography in this makes the film menacing with blackened rooms lit only by candle light casting dark, sharp shadows across the walls, some extreme camera angles up stairs and down halls, shots of faces seen only in mirrors, extreme close-ups, and sweat dripping on the face of a nervous murderer.

Failing novelist Stephen Byrne (Louis Hayward) murders his maid and manipulates his brother John (Lee Bowman) into helping him dispose of the body. Later, after it has been found, he sees a chance to pin the crime on John, whom he eventually tries to kill, too (making it look like suicide). 'House by the River' is suffering from one essential downside: The plot is illogical. While Stephen does everything to let suspicion fall on his brother, he is at the same time working on a new novel (following the advice of a neighbour to focus on things he knows) about a murder - a novel that is as good as an admission of guilt. And if he puts all this into that novel, which after all he intends to publish, why is he so desparate to prevent his wife Marjory (Jane Wyatt) from reading the manuscript? Despite all this, I am rating 'House by the River' 7 stars. That is because it is well-acted and beautifully photographed. Especially the eerie scenes on the river (with its murky and brackish water) are great. In sum, this is by no means one of Fritz Lang's best films, far from it. But it has some important points in its favour.

It starts out very exciting; then unfortunately turns into one of those film noirs we've often seen quite too much of. Great promises, low fulfilment of these expectations. True to life, sure; but hey, I still want to be amused when I watch a movie.

The unsightly spectre of a dead cow floating along the river is not quite the view you would choose to have from your home, especially when, with frequently turning tides, the decaying beast seems intent on making more comebacks than Frank Sinatra.

In the absence of wife Jane Wyatt, author with the roving eye, Louis Hayward makes unwelcome advances towards recently appointed and very beautiful maid Emily (Dorothy Patrick). Phased by her hysterical response and distracted by the probability of being overheard, upon finally releasing his grip from around her neck, he discovers...that she is dead.

Engaging the reluctant assistance of partially disabled brother (Lee Bowman), Emily's body is bundled into a wood sack and under cover of night, dumped into the river. Despite being firmly anchored down, one suspects that we have not seen the last of Emily. Indeed, it's not the red red robin that's likely to come bob bob bobbing along the water any time soon and a further case of Floating Carcass Syndrome seems imminent. When Hayward shows discomfort at the sight of a jumping silver fish caught fleetingly in the moonlight, one senses the presence of a bad omen.

A low budget entry from Republic Pictures, House by the River is a generally enthralling period (c1900) gothic noir, which bears a certain comparison with Gaslight. Only during the talky courtroom scene does interest wane slightly. With glasses consisting of one plain and one tinted lens, is the judge attempting to make a fashion statement? If so, any fragment of street cred is extinguished by his comb over hair do!

Featuring a cast comprising largely of tier two Hollywood performers, including Bowman, who incurs the wrath of housekeeper, Jody Gilbert by refusing to consume a substantial meal with his drink.

An often overlooked minor gem in Fritz Lang's output, with some atmospheric twilight and night shots of the river contributing effectively to the generally haunting nature of the film. House by the River is definitely worth viewing.

The great Fritz Lang working with actors which are not big names, are not first-rate stars. But the result is exceptional, all the actors are very good, the story is interesting and the direction is top notch.

This feels like a more successful attempt at what I think Fritz Lang was trying to accomplish with Secret Beyond the Door, a gothic tale of murder. Where the previous film descended into rank Freudian silliness, the psychological elements of House by the River are left a bit more beneath the surface, working more in line with traditional thriller structure and conventions. That means that this film doesn't break any thriller mold, but it does operate more comfortably and reasonably in the familiar space while giving Lang room to explore shadows and composition, as was his wont.

This movie feels like it's missing an opening ten minute long or so scene to more fully establish characters and setting. It almost feels like we got dropped into the second scene of the film. Still, we meet Stephen Byrne (Louis Hayward), a minor novelist of little renown, left alone at his home by the river with only his nosy neighbor Mrs. Ambrose (Ann Shoemaker) and his new maid Emily (Dorothy Patrick) to keep him company. After Emily bathes and puts on some of her mistress's perfume, Stephen, frustrated by his novelistic troubles, comes onto Emily very hard to the point that she starts screaming. He tries to hush her up. His hands end up around her throat, and she dies. Stephen's brother John (Lee Bowman) shows up, and Stephen manages to guilt John into helping him hide the body in the river. By the time his wife Marjorie (Jane Wyatt) shows up, all seems well in the house.

Stephen becomes steadily unhinged as time goes on, obviously wanting to feel secure in his getting away with the crime while also having fear that a noose is tightening around his neck. However, a certain meta-element gets introduced here that gives him drive. At a book signing Stephen organizes to capitalize on his proximity to everything, one of the nice ladies offers him the old advice of writing what he knows. He's going to write about the murder of Emily. As the investigation continues, with moments that both ease Stephen's worry and compound it depending on the circumstances, he writes away, using his position as employer of the girl to help advance his fame and career. Stephen is a complete psychopath.

In contrast is John, his brother. John's first moment in the film is odd, with him walking in the back door of the house right after the crime and Stephen announcing his name like we already know who he is (this is the core of my idea that there's a missing opening to help introduce characters a bit more, the other part being that Marjorie doesn't appear for at least the first 20 minutes), but he ends up being the moral center of the story. He's a good man, an accountant who gave up a large portion of his portion of their parents inheritance and offered it up to Stephen to help him establish himself in a way conducive to his writing. He's hard working and honest, and getting entangled in Stephen's web of lies puts him in an untenable position where he can't do anything to get out that is remotely right in his own eyes. On the one hand, he would have to give up his brother, the brother he had already sacrificed so much for, and on the other, he was actually an accessory after the fact. This moral quandary, along with some damning circumstantial evidence, puts him in the crosshairs of the authorities, much to the delight of his younger brother.

In more than one way, House by the River reminds me of yet another Alfred Hitchcock film, Under Capricorn. I have very kind feelings towards it, but it was definitely not kindly received contemporaneously (or even now by the rest of the filmgoing world). Released in 1949, the year before House by the River, it also dealt with a Victorian era mystery involving murder. I find it hard to believe that the studio would have pushed for a Victorian era gothic mystery to take advantage of the lack of success of Hitchcock's film, but it seems obvious to me that Lang was watching Hitchcock's career closely, especially through the 40s. One way that the two remind me of each other is that they're both billed as thrillers, but they also both function more fully as dramas. Under Capricorn is more melodramatic in nature while House by the River leans more luridly thrillerish. I think that's why I like Hitchcock's film more, it more fully embraces the conventions of traditional drama while peppering its ending with thriller elements, but House by the River is no slouch when it comes to the drama. That is highlighted in the characterization of the brothers.

Stephen is well drawn as a complete psychopath, hiding it through his writing and the civility of nice manners, but John is consumed by guilt and loyalty at war with each other. They're both well-written, and in between them is Marjorie who grows to detest her husband and find true affection for her brother-in-law. None of it is hitting the strongest of emotional chords, but it works well enough. And, much like Scarlet Street feeling like a drama culminating in its own thread of horror, this does its own part in crescendoing into the conventions of gothic thriller territory. It works. It just doesn't elicit deep emotions as it gets there.

So, it's a fine thriller, something of a minor return to form after the less than successful Cloak and Dagger and Secret Beyond the Door. It's Lang using his camera to tell a racy story (as Mrs. Ambrose describes the tastes of the masses that Stephen should be appealing to in his novels) to entertain and nothing more. In that, he succeeds.

Louis Hayward, Jane Wyatt, and Lee Bowman star in "House by the River," a 1950 film directed by Fritz Lang. According to the interview on the DVD, this film for some reason was "lost" and later located.

The film is a Gothic drama. Hayward plays Stephen Byrne, a snake and an unsuccessful writer. One day, while his wife (Wyatt) is out of the house, Stephen makes a pretty aggressive pass at the family maid, Emily (Dorothy Patrick). When she starts screaming, Stephen winds up killing her. Panicked, he begs his crippled brother John (Lee Bowman) to help him get rid of the body. John is sick of baling out his brother, but does so because Stephen lies to him, stating that his wife is at the doctor's because she's pregnant. John reluctantly helps. Emily's disappearance causes a lot of publicity, which helps the sale of Stephen's books and inspires him to write one about her death as his marriage deteriorates. Meanwhile, suspicion falls in the wrong quarters.

This is an excellent film by Lang, with some of the action taking place in the dark, narrow house and on the river, which has become a tremendous threat to both Stephen and John. At times it's downright creepy.

This film was made by Republic, and this isn't what one would call an A list cast or budget, yet under Lang's direction, it's an A film. All three of the stars would enjoy solid careers in television, as would many of the supporting players.

Louis Hayward's career was a strange thing. Handsome, smooth, with a caressing voice, he made a wonderful Simon Templar in "The Saint in New York" and appeared in several top films, including "The Count of Monte Cristo," "And Then There Were None," and "Anthony Adverse." It seemed like all systems go. But mega-stardom was not to be; the majority of his films were weak entries. He became wealthy acting and producing on television. Hayward is excellent here, embodying the cold opportunistic and amoral Stephen. Lee Bowman is very good as John, doing some of his best work. And Jane Wyatt, who would become known to baby boomers as Margaret Anderson on "Father Knows Best" is lovely as Stephen's unhappy wife.

A must see if you like Lang.

A writer inadvertently kills his maid and convinces his brother to help him dispose of the body. Dark and brooding, this one drips with film noir atmosphere, helped by the Gothic setting (house by the river!). It is masterfully directed by Lang, who it seems was incapable of making an uninteresting film. It is fascinating watching the tension grow between the self-absorbed writer, his caring wife, and his crippled brother. Hayward makes a good villain. Wyatt, who's rarely looked as attractive, is fine as his wife. Bowman is excellent in the sympathetic role of the crippled brother. The ending is somewhat abrupt, but the film is quite absorbing.